


Keep Your Enemies Closer

by Decepticonsensual



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gesture of respect for an enemy winds up creating a very unlikely friendship... and possibly more.  (Brief depiction of violence and mention of canon and non-canon minor character deaths.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Your Enemies Closer

Strangely enough, it’s Airachnid who brings them together.

Oh, she doesn’t mean to, which is one of the most delicious parts of the whole thing.  Airachnid would probably recoil at the thought that she’d managed to unite two of her greatest enemies.  Not that she’ll ever find out, but Soundwave likes to imagine her reaction anyway.

That’s part of the reason he does it, but there’s something else, as well – an odd kindred feeling for the taciturn blue Autobot.  They’re both soldiers, used to putting aside everything else they are for a cause, and yet, for both of them, there’s an aspect of this war that is… personal.  They cherish certain hurts, keeping them fresh, reliving them over and over until they can one day take their revenge.  Arcee has her two lost partners; Soundwave will never forget the ’Bots who killed his other deployers, or the medic and the Wrecker conspiring to plant a bomb inside Laserbeak, the only one he has left.  And Airachnid was the one enemy who managed to make both their lists.  So Soundwave considers it only fair to let his opponent know what became of her.

He finds the Autobot standing on a clifftop, the setting sun flaring off plating the colour of spilled fuel.  Most Cybertronians find that shade unsettling, but Soundwave has always rather liked it.

She whirls around when she hears him transform, her hand shifting into a blaster.  He holds up both hands in a placating gesture.

“What do you want, Soundwave?”

It’s the work of a moment to show her the footage:  Airachnid at the head of an army of zombie Insecticons; her smug challenge; the image of her furious face suddenly eclipsed by a blossoming spacebridge portal.  At that part, the Autobot actually snorts with laughter.  “Wow – and I thought _I’d_ got her good.”

Soundwave sketches a kind of half-bow in her direction, to indicate that, yes, she did.  He’s just done it a little more permanently, is all.

“Nicely done.”  She folds her arms and her voice hardens as she adds, “But I hope you’re not expecting me to thank you.”  Still, there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.  Soundwave folds his arms in return and mimics her pose, as if to say, _well, if you’re going to be like_ that _about it,_ and the smile breaks out in earnest.

It fades when she looks away, gazing at something just off to Soundwave’s left.  Sensing a possible trick, he keeps tabs on her out of the corner of his visor while he follows her gaze, seeing a large stone cairn a few yards away.  The Autobot sighs.

Soundwave raises a hand and points.  He has a feeling he knows what the mound is about.  Dredging up an overheard transmission from years back, he plays it back to her as a query.  :: _Cliff_ ::

She starts at the sound of her own voice, then shakes her head ruefully.  “Yeah.  What little we had of him, we buried here.  It’s just…”  She eyes him sidelong.  “Avenging them is important, but it doesn’t bring them back, you know?”

Soundwave’s visor flares to life again.  This time, the clips it shows are old:  Ravage’s image, followed by a POV shot from the deployer’s own camera as he’s ambushed in an alleyway.  A clear shot of his killer before energon splatters the screen and it goes black.  The same mech, jolting awake from a sound recharge as Soundwave’s feelers sneak into view, wrapping around his throat.  Soundwave switches the feed off before things get too gruesome – Ravage’s murderer did not die quickly – but it’s enough to make his point.

Yes, he knows.

The Autobot is leaning in close to watch the footage, so she’s thrown off balance when Soundwave abruptly pushes past her to stalk to the edge of the precipice.  Time he was on his way.

Only…

Instead of transforming, he finds himself sitting down at the edge, legs dangling, and turns to look at her.  He pats the ground beside him.

The Autobot – Arcee – stares at first, but gradually, like a cybercat lured by a treat, she makes her way warily towards him.  Silent, they watch the sun set together.

The first few times after that, they tell stories of the dead.  Arcee talks about Cliffjumper and Tailgate, and Soundwave shows her footage of his deployers.  Over time, though, the stories become more and more about life.  Tales of what they did before the war; pranks their comrades used to play on each other, even during the grimmest parts of the conflict; all the weird quirks of the human world.  Arcee is explaining about Smokescreen and Jack and the human vehicle full of fast food when she hears an odd, mechanical grating noise.  It takes her a full twenty seconds to work out that Soundwave is _laughing,_ and trying desperately to stifle it.

Arcee smacks him lightly on the shoulder.  “Vow of silence, my aft.”  He points at her accusingly.  Not _his_ fault.  Stupid witty Autobot.  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”  She turns slightly and leans back against him, snuggling into his plating.

Hesitantly, he lifts an arm and wraps it around her.

It’s some weeks later, while she’s lying with her head in his lap and he’s gently stroking her helm with one feeler, that Arcee asks, “It’s weirdly pretty, isn’t it?”  She points languidly out into the canyon, its sands turned silvery and metallic by the moon.  “The landscape out here almost looks like Cybertron, especially in the moonlight, but there’s still something alien about it.  And after all these years, I… I kind of find myself liking it.”  The warm weight of her frame stirs against his.  “If we ever left, I think I’d actually miss this world.  What about you?”

His arms and feelers tighten around her in response, as he parrots back her own words.  :: _Miss this_ ::

She smiles wistfully up at him.  “Yeah.  So would I.”

***

When it’s all over, it’s Arcee he sends the message to, and she’s the one who opens a groundbridge to rescue him from the Shadowzone.

Because they’re soldiers… but other things matter, too.


End file.
